Benedict Cumberbatch has another in-depth interview out now to promote The Imitation Game. This one is with The Telegraph and the tone is a lot different than the somewhat cutesy, fan-baity and sexy interview he gave to Elle UK. I keep seeing Eddie Redmayne promoting The Theory of Everything in America and every time I see Redmayne, I think: “Well, he’s doing a very visible Oscar campaign, I wonder if that will work?” Meanwhile, Benedict still hasn’t come to America yet to promote TIG, but he’s already done a lot of print media for his Oscar campaign. I wonder if that will work? We’ll see. In any case, you can read Bendy’s new interview here. He talks A LOT about Alan Turing and there’s some interesting stuff about fame and Julian Assange. Some highlights:

BC on the criticism that ‘TIG’ isn’t ‘gay enough’: ‘For me there’s explicit love in the film, and the fact of his sexuality being homosexual doesn’t make any difference. If it would have added to the film, we’d have done it. I’d have no qualms about filming those scenes, expressing that side of a character’s relationship to his body. It’s partly to do with the logical loop of the film, the poetical loop. It’s about what’s not seen, it’s about secrets, what’s repressed – and his sexuality was. This is a man who’s never going to be allowed to love, and that’s really his tragedy and the tragedy of the film.’

Playing Julian Assange: ‘I learnt my lesson with Assange that you cannot get too involved in the subject matter; that you have to focus on the character. But at the same time that was such a current story I wanted to do him justice; I didn’t want to serve him up as being some kind of two-dimensional villain. I wanted to make him into a flawed hero basically.’

The creepiness of Assange’s open letter to Cumby: ‘There was a huge amount of passive aggression in that. I’m not stupid. I knew what he was doing; I knew that he was blindsiding me with praise, thinking my ego would be massaged by some fat, fictitious pay cheque or the idea of being “a movie star” by playing him, and that would persuade me to be some talking piece for the State Department. I wrote back a very strong email that, unless he shows it, will never see the light of day. It’s one of the best pieces of writing I’ve ever done, I’m proud to say, and he was very polite in response. But I don’t feel the need to publish that correspondence, and I’m not going to talk about it.’

He has a half-sister who is 18 years older than him, so he was raised as a ‘spoilt’ only child: ‘Although “spoilt” implies that you’re ruined… I didn’t have to fight for my proportion of love, attention and food or the things you have to do in larger families. All of their resources were poured into me for my education [Cumberbatch went to Harrow]. But I was aware of that. I would have loved to have had brothers or sisters, or so I thought at the time. I was always very gregarious, and I don’t think they would have sent me to boarding school if I wasn’t confident with stepping away from the nest. I love them, and I always returned to the nest with great joy.’

Does he care about stardom? ‘What matters to me is the quality and the variety of the work. I’m in it for the long game. I’m interested in working in 40 years’ time, and turning round and talking to an actor on set and telling them stories about working with Judi Dench and Michael Gambon. So any talk of “man of the moment” hype, heat, whatever, I just smile wryly. It’s the same sh-t with “sexiest whatever” – I was around 10 years before that as an actor and no one took the same face seriously. It’s all projection.’

Whether fame changed his life: ‘Yes, as anyone’s would with the high level of over-exposure at times and that sort of popularity, yeah definitely. But I think the way to normalise is to try to adhere to who and what you did before as much as you can. People have this idea that you’re immediately bubble-wrapped and surrounded by security. I’m not. I get on the Tube and I get on my motorbike. I go to galleries and restaurants and museums and I see people, and they take photographs and I say, “Please don’t,” or whatever seems the appropriate response. The strange thing is walking into a room and knowing that people recognise you, and you don’t know who they are. That’s a different energy that you have to get used to, and some days I’m good at that and some days I’m not. And when I’m not I feel self-conscious. But I still plough on with my day. I don’t scuttle home. I don’t want to live in a world where I have to build high walls.’

[From The Telegraph]

He also described himself as “vaguely” Buddhist and says he meditates whenever possible, which seems… uncharacteristic for someone like Bendy. He seems pretty hyperactive and I would imagine trying to get him to sit still to meditate would be like trying to put a lion in a small cage. I thought the Assange stuff was interesting – I covered the “breakup letter” Assange sent to Benedict just before Bendy filmed The Fifth Estate. Assange then published the letter just before TFE was released, but Assange never published Cumberbatch’s responding correspondence. Benedict is trying to be nice about it, and “passive aggressive” is really the most accurate description. And as for Benedict returning to the nest… he flat-out adores his parents. He seems like a mummy’s boy.

Photos courtesy of WENN.